


Detours

by EudociaCovert



Series: The Best Path [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fear of Azula covers a multitude of sins, Freedom Fighters, Gen, Jet has Anger Issues, Jet is manipulative, Longshot actually says something, Longshot has telescope eyes, Order of the White Lotus, Secret Society, Traveling, Zuko has Trust Issues, Zuko is confused by everything, Zuko is paranoid, Zuko seems less angry, Zuko's so easily managed it's sad, but he's just too tired to rage, but mostly by Smellerbee's gender, it's great
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 03:03:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3961993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EudociaCovert/pseuds/EudociaCovert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zuko accidentally gets recruited, followed, and initiated, all by people more devious than him. It's a long day. 2nd in "The Best Path" series, directly follows "Byroads".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Detours

“How did you get hold of an ostrich-horse, anyways?”

Step, spin, hand on hilt, where’s the door, where’s the danger-

“Easy,” the stranger grins. He’s not a stranger, he’s the boy from yesterday, with the hook swords, who helped Li. Zuko puts a hand out with as much control as he can muster, and presses it to the ostrich-horse’s saddle. He grips, hard, and waits for the dizziness to pass.

“Hey,” the other’s voice has changed, grown serious. “Are you-?”

“Fine.” Zuko steels himself and makes it so. “You’re up early.”

“I guess we had the same idea you did,” the stranger shrugs. “Better to travel in the early morning, when it’s cooler.”

Zuko could do without the cold. It’s an old enemy that seemed to seep into his core at the North Pole and hasn’t left since. It grows the farther he goes, the thinner he gets. He had decided to leave now because there was nothing to stop him, and he was already awake with sore muscles and stomach pain and memories of better times.

And worse times.

“I stole it.” He tells the boy.

“The ostrich-horse?”

“Yes.”

“Ah. From who?”

Zuko thinks about Song, with her compassion and her smile and her scars. “From someone who didn’t deserve it.”

The boy’s doesn’t move, and his expression doesn’t change. “Not many do.”

Zuko’s lips quirk almost imperceptibly, and he turns away to hide it, tugging at the saddle’s girth. The ostrich-horse makes a disgruntled sound and Zuko brushes a hand over its neck to quiet it.

“Which way are you headed?”

Zuko doesn’t let himself tense, or frown. “Why do you ask?”

“If you were going our way, I was going to make a proposition.”

Zuko looks at the boy out of the corner of his eye, doesn’t stop checking the ostrich horses tack. “A proposition,”

“You travel with us. We’ll supply feed for your ostrich-horse, and you keep a look out for danger. You’ve got a better vantage point than we do from the ground.”

“Expecting danger?” Zuko says uneasily. If he gets as weak as he had when he’d entered the village, this strange group of fighters would be in the perfect position to take his ride and leave him stranded. But if they’re in actual danger, could he leave them to their fates?

They fought beside him, after all.

“Always,” the boy said, with a sharp grin (he’d given his name at some point the previous day, what was it?). “But we came across an occupied town not too far back, and it’s never a bad idea to have backup.”

Zuko doesn’t know if the boy, (it was Jet, wasn’t it) was alluding to Zuko or himself as in need of aid, but he doesn’t really care in light of the other news. He breaths in deeply and holds onto the calm that has become so much easier to find now that he has his stomach and his mount and his dizzy spells to think of. “The Fire Nation is close.” He states, tasting the words. There is little emotion in his voice, but there’s more than he meant for there to be.

He wants to see them, the soldiers of his homeland. He wants to run back and pretend the world isn’t a place where nice girls get burned and little boys sent to war, and people like Jet make fool’s deals with complete strangers to protect their friends. He just wants to go home.

He’s a fugitive. They will kill him, without thought. “In which direction?”

Jet’s face falls smooth and his eyes sharpen. “Would you go towards them, or away, if you knew?”

As much as he regrets it, as much as he yearns... “Away.”

“Then you’re going our way. It’s a good deal,” Jet says.

“Especially for you.”

The hooked sword fighter blinks, regards him, recalculates. “What do you mean by that?”

“It’s three to one,” Zuko points out. “I have an ostrich-horse, and you don’t. And I’m-” weak. “Not at full strength.”

Jet laughs, just a bit, like Zuko is being amusing. Zuko hates it. “I won’t lie and say I didn’t think about it, but we wouldn’t.”

“Out of the kindness of your hearts.” Zuko intones, skeptical.

“Don’t have much of one of those,” Jet shrugs. “But I do have enough of one to know my sort when I see them.”

“Your sort.” Zuko doesn’t know if Jet means a fellow refugee or an Earth Kingdom fighter, but he’s wrong either way.

“My kind,” Jet says, soft suddenly, like he’s approaching a child or an injured animal. “You know, outcasts.”

And, well… he is right, then, isn’t he? But just because it's true doesn’t mean it isn’t a trap.

Zuko knows it’s a trap.

But Jet stepped into a fight he had no reason to be in because he saw a child mistreated. Zuko is… there was a chance he wouldn’t have won, if he’d been alone. And Zuko has become so tired of being constantly alone, as much as he still thinks it is necessary. There’s nothing to block out new doubts and old memories.

“Hey, I know you aren’t used to this,” Jet says, still careful, like Zuko might spook, “but sometimes people don’t mean you any harm.”

Zuko knows it’s a lie, completely and intimately, but…

…but just like with Azula, just like with Uncle, (just like with his father, the traitor in Zuko’s head whispers) Zuko always believes the lie, if he wants it enough.

“Just a few days,” He tells Jet, and himself. Just a few days as something useful. As part of something, like he isn’t part of anything, not anymore. Just a few days.

Jet smiles.

\--

It’s the smaller boy, Smellerbee, who starts asking questions.

“So, what’s your name?”

Zuko isn’t caught as off guard as he was the last time he was asked, the second time anyone ever had to ask, but he still has no answer and he knows it shows on his face. “Doesn’t matter.”

Smellerbee shrugs. “Okay.”

Zuko narrows his eyes. That was suspiciously easy.

The boy catches his expression and laughs a bit. It’s higher, clearer, and Zuko’s suddenly unsure if this is a boy or a girl he’s speaking to. “We’ve met a lot of people,” Smellerbee explains. “It’s not so odd, to not have a name.”

The bowman, Longshot, places a hand briefly on the youth’s shoulder, before shifting closer to Jet. Smellerbee gives a small private smile, and Zuko turns away, uncomfortable.

for a few minutes it's silent.

“So, where are you from?”

Zuko grits his teeth and doesn't answer.

“Look sharp,” Jet’s voice rings out. He sounds like an army commander, Zuko thinks, snapping to alert. He scans their surroundings, annoyed that Jet saw something before him when that’s the only reason he’s here. He sees nothing.

“Are you sure, Longshot?” Zuko hears, and turns back to the travelling party in time to see Longshot nod solemnly. Of course it was the archer that saw, Zuko thinks, his guilt subsiding a bit. He’d seen the shot Longshot took yesterday, the kid has to have eyes like a messenger hawk’s.

“Alright. We’ll keep going as we’ve been, but a bit slower, and stay ready. We’ll see if they come any closer… it could just be another refugee.”

Zuko slows the ostrich-horse to a near stop, a sick foreboding in his belly. He still can’t see anything coming. “What’s going on?”

Jet spares him a glance. His mouth is stretched in a thin line. “We’re being followed.”

Azula, Zuko thinks immediately, but no. Azula can be patient, but only when she needs to be. She would not count a match between her, three Earth Kingdom child fighters, and her brother as one of those occasions. They’re too weak. Zuko’s always been too weak, when it’s Azula.

If it was her, his companions would already be dead.

He dismounts quickly, pulling at the ties holding the sack of feed to the saddle.

“What are you doing?” Jet asks, his voice tighter, like it had been in the aftermath of the fight with the Army thugs.

“Rescinding our agreement,” Zuko says.

“What, the first sign of danger and you run?” Jet snarls, but his sneer twists into disappointment too quickly for Zuko to waste energy getting mad about it.

“No! Look, did you think someone was following you before you met me?”

Jet darts a glance at Longshot, who shakes his head the slightest bit.

“I didn’t think so,” Zuko grunts, hefting the bag off the ostrich-horse’s back and into Smellerbee’s startled arms. “I’ve been feeling off for days. Edgy.”

Jet’s face clears. “You think they’re after you.”

“I’ve made some people… angry.” Zuko says carefully. “If the Fire Nation’s already occupying towns this far southwest, I could have been recognized without realizing.” Zuko bows to Longshot. “Thank you for the spot, I’m indebted.” he says formally, and without much thought, and makes to climb back onto the beast.

Jet’s hand darts out, gripping the top of his knee. Zuko jerks but Jet just leans in, pinning Zuko’s foot to the stirrup and his leg to the ostrich horse's side, expertly keeping Zuko from mounting. “That’s it, you’re just taking off?”

Zuko shoves Jet's arm off and backs up a few steps to get all three fighters in his field of vision. His head is swimming again. He locks his jaw and bears it. “I gave back the feed, you can sell it later.”

“I don’t care about that!”

“I’m bringing danger down on you,” Zuko growls, annoyed. “I thought you were trying to keep your people safe!”

“Not just THEM, you idiot!” Jet exclaims and…

Well. That’s…

Zuko doesn’t know what to do with that. Not at all.

“If they have followed you long, without moving against you, they won’t now.” Zuko’s eyes snap to Longshot, whose voice is somehow a surprise. Jet and Smellerbee turn, giving the archer their complete attention. Longshot meets Zuko’s eyes with his own deep dark ones. “I recognize your debt, and ask your aid in reaching the next village.”

Zuko blinks, aghast. He was not expecting the gangly archer in mismatched clothes and a fraying straw hat to know nobleman etiquette. He grinds his teeth, feeling trapped. There’s really no way to back out of a debt already admitted, not without a huge black mark against his honor as an individual.

Zuko has precious little of that left to lose.

Besides, if his shadow is Azula, leaving probably won’t save them anyways.

“Damn it,” he snatches the sack of feed back from Smellerbee, who looks confused, and begins strapping it back onto the saddle without looking at Jet, who he just knows is smirking. “Spirits damn it all.”

\---

The next sign of life comes in a grouping of curious earthen mounds. Whoever is tracking him has fallen back, past even Longshot’s vast scope of observation. The possibility that Jet and his friends are thieves seems more likely now, when it’s painfully obvious that Longshot can see farther than Zuko can, height advantage or no, meaning Jet’s proposition was a ploy. It’s been half the day, and Zuko is aching from riding so tensely, trying to keep an eye on both his companions and the unknown danger behind them.

If there IS someone behind them. Longshot is still the only one to see the danger. He could be lying, setting a trap, although Zuko doesn’t see what they could gain from putting him on the defensive like this. Not that it’s not plausible they’re working an angle he just can’t see, he thinks ruefully. Zuko is no good at games.

“Longshot, scout ahead.” Jet commands as they near the shelter, and Longshot darts forward in a silent half-run. Zuko dismounts, adjusting the strings of his straw hat to make sure his face and scar are mostly in shadow, and guiding the ostrich towards a convenient outcropping of rock. As little as he likes giving Jet and his crew a golden opportunity to steal his mount, he’d much rather have the beast safe from unknown dangers, and even from this far away he can tell this is no simple plains town.

Unwilling to put all his eggs in one basket, Zuko unties his small bag of necessities and throws it over his shoulder before rejoining Jet and Smellerbee.

Longshot meets them as they enter the place, stepping away from the large inexplicable lump of ice sizzling in the center of the tiny settlement and falling in at Jet’s right side like he never left. “Anything interesting?” Jet asks in a casual murmur. Longshot frowns slightly, makes a few almost imperceptible hand gestures, and taps a roll of paper against the back of Jet’s hand. Jet takes the paper fluidly with a nod of understanding, and slides it into the fold of his shirt, and steps towards the largest structure.

“Well?” Zuko hisses to Smellerbee as they step into the shadiest hovel of a bar Zuko’s ever seen.

Smellerbee makes a noise of confusion, and Zuko scowls. Smellerbee blinks. “Oh, right. Looks like a bounty hunters’ hide out, there were Fire Nation Wanted posters around. None of Jet. Longshot took the ones they had down, so we can check and see if there’s anyone we know.”

Zuko’s pulse jumps, and he has to dig his fingers into his palms to keep his breathing even, very aware that he’s incredibly recognizable, has a price on his head, and is surrounded by enemies. He darts a glance at Longshot, who’s watching the shady patrons of the den of reprobates they stepped into and not him. He doesn’t look like any different than he had before, but Longshot has a blanker face than Mai. If he didn’t want Zuko to know anything, he won’t. He ducks into the shadow of his straw hat and hopes that somehow news of the traitor prince hadn’t reached this place yet.

With his luck, Zuko notes grimly, they’ve known all along, and lured him here on purpose.

When they take a seat he makes sure he's closest to the door, and his hand is on his Duel Dao hilts.

“Alright, let’s see,” Jet unfurls the posters on the table with obvious relish. “Who’s been giving the flaming swine headaches lately?”

The first picture is of the Avatar, of course, and Zuko can’t stop his twitch, the sudden and overwhelming rush of anger, failure, loss, and embarrassingly, shamefully, the smallest thread of regret.

When he’s in control enough to look up, he finds Longshot watching him with the slightest frown.

“No surprise there,” Jet murmurs, flipping the page. Zuko doesn’t twitch this time, but he wants to at the sight of a familiar blue and white theatre mask.

“Now, this one’s interesting!” Jet muses, leaning closer to the image. “You gotta have guts to fight the Fire Nation sure, but you need balls of STEEL to fight them in that.”

Zuko thinks about the mask hidden in the pack over his shoulder, and feels strangely insulted.

Jet flips the page, and flips it again since the plain faced young man is apparently not interesting enough. “He looks tough,” Smellerbee notes, studying a square scowling face with light narrowed eyes and two thin scars on his forehead. “I wonder what he did to piss them off.”

“That’s Jeong Jeong,” Zuko explains before he can stop himself. “He’s a Fire Nation traitor.”

Jet freezes. “A what?”

“A traitor,” Zuko repeats slowly. “To the Fire Nation. The first, they say.”

Jet’s face twists, and Zuko becomes very still at the hate in it, an uncontrollable primal response. “That’s impossible,” Jet spits. “They’re monsters. There’s no way one of them changed. They don’t have the capacity.”

“Then how do you explain that?” Zuko nods at the poster.

“A trick,” Jet answers immediately.

“He’s been actively opposing the Fire Nation for decades,” Zuko protests, irritated without knowing why. “That’s a long time just for a trick.”

“The Fire Nation,” Jet says, his voice clear, even, and utterly lacking in sanity, “is capable of absolutely anything. Anything but remorse.”

Smellerbee puts a hand on Jet’s shoulder. He shakes it off, scowling, but the fanatic light in his eye dies a little.

“Whatever,” Jet grumbles. He flips the page to show the worn wood of the table. No posters about the banished prince or his uncle, Zuko realizes in relief. Good thing too; with the way Jet reacted to Jeong Jeong there’s no way Zuko could have gotten out of the door without a fight.

Zuko hangs on to the memory of Jet’s ugly twisted face, makes himself remember that he is not what Jet thinks he is, and Jet would kill him in a heartbeat, if he could, if he knew.

Zuko can’t forget that he is alone.

“So what’s the plan?” Smellerbee asks, leaning skinny arms on the table.

Jet frowns, thoughtful now. “We still have some coin. We could hire one of these goons to take out the tail, I guess, if we’re careful about it. If we aren’t we’ll just end up robbed and dead. Any of you have another idea?”

“I might have something.” Zuko says slowly, his eyes on a small old man with a bald head seated in the corner, a Pai Sho board arranged before him. There’s a niggling in Zuko’s head, an old forgotten memory that he's not sure he wants to look at. He pokes at it as he stands, a small under formed suspicion expanding in his mind. He feels like a fool as he moves towards the empty seat at the Pai Sho table.

Jet stands and follows him. “What are you doing?”

Zuko meets eyes with the man across the board, and swallows. “Taking a gamble,” he says.

The man smiles questioningly when Zuko reaches him. “What can I do for you, young man?”

“I’d like a game.” Zuko states.

The man’s eyes narrow, just a bit. He gestures to the board. “The guest has the first move.”

Zuko sits and rubs his sweating palms against his legs. He reaches into the bowl at his elbow, and after a moment of nervous fiddling, locates the Lotus Tile.

Feeling like an absolute idiot, he places it in the very center of the board.

“I see you favor the White Lotus gambit,” the old man says, surprise evident in his voice but not his face. “Not many still cling to the ancient ways.” The man leans forward, removing his hands from his sleeves to press them together, and slowly open them into cupped palms.

Zuko stares at his hands. He remembers his Uncle's, held in the same way. He was hurt and scared and angry because his mother was gone, Azula was getting special training from their father again, and his poor broken uncle, newly home from war, would only cup his small hands within his big ones and make him repeat the same stupid phrases, over and over.

“Those who do can always find a friend.” Zuko rasps, and carefully copies the hand movement.

Jet jerks at his side, and Smellerbee makes a troubled sound. He’s sure Longshot’s watching too. They might not know what’s going on exactly, but they’re sharp enough to know something is.

“Then let’s play,” the man says, and places a tile. Zuko breathes in, grabs for the memory hovering just outside his reach, and lets his hand move.

-he can feel the rocking of the ship underneath him, feel phantom pain across the left side of his face, smell the cloying sent of burned and rotting flesh, and, greatest of all, hear the click click click of Pai Sho tiles as Uncle Iroh moves them across a miniature board, always the same pattern, over and over and over and over and-

Zuko blinks the memory away to see the tiles placed around the edge of the board, in the shape of a lotus.

“Welcome brother,” the man says. “The White Lotus opens wide to those who know her secrets.”

The man stands, gestures for them to follow, and walks towards the back door of the bar.

Jet gives Zuko an incredulous look. “Who ARE you?”

Zuko isn’t so sure he knows anymore.

\---

They follow the small man through the back streets of the settlement. The structures are rough and tan, tall and square, instead of squat and round. Jet is walking slightly in front of them taking in everything, Longshot’s guarding their backs, and Smellerbee is at his side, suspicious and grumbling.

The man opens a door in one of the tall square structures, and waves the group inside. As soon as the door closes behind them he turns and gives Zuko a short bow. “It has been a long time since I’ve played the game that way, and never with one so young.”

He walks past them and Zuko follows him with his eyes. They’re in a plant nursery of some kind, and he has the sudden crushing fear that this was all the unnecessarily intricate induction into a flower arranging club or something equally as ridiculous. Given what he knows of his uncle, it’s frighteningly probable.

The old man approaches the back of the shop and Zuko follows, Jet and his friends close behind.

The man knocks twice, sharply, on a solid wooden door and steps back.

There’s a small blocked window on the top part of the door, just the right height and shape to look out from. That’s not something a gardening club would need, Zuko thinks. Hopes.

The piece of wood blocking the opening slides to the side, just enough to show half a face. “Who knocks at the garden gate?” the man asks through the window.

Spirits, another old game. “One who has eaten the fruit and tasted its mysteries.”

The door swings open, and Zuko steps forward warily, trying to look like he has a clue what's going on. He's too dizzy for this, he thinks.

“I’m sorry,” the Pai Sho player says from behind him. “Members only. I’m sure you can understand.”

Zuko looks back, locking gazes with Jet, who’s regarding him with blank, careful assessment. For some reason the thought of walking into the room without him makes the hairs on the back of Zuko's neck stand up. “Then you’ll have to turn us all out. I’m no member.”

The Pai Sho man looks shocked, but the man who opened the door simply observes him shrewdly. “Then tell me friend, where did you learn to play the game in such a way?”

Zuko straightens his back and tries to remember if there’s another phrase for this, a motion, a damn handshake. He can’t think of any, so he tells the truth. “From an old man who saw this day coming long before I did.”

The man nods. “Old men often do.” He squints at Zuko for a moment, before his face clears. “Ah. I believe I know on whom you speak. Forgive me, it has been many years.” His gaze jumps to Zuko’s scar. “I did not recognize your face.”

Zuko stills, acutely aware of the fact that he’s given Jet his back, and if this man speaks of who he really is Zuko will most likely get a blade in it before he can move.

“I would really rather it stayed that way.”

The man looks at him for another second, then nods. “Let them in,” he tells the old man. “We will make an exception, this once.”

Zuko’s companions shuffle in. Smellerbee grumbles again when the old man shuts the door behind them. Zuko turns to the table, where the second man is already seated, holding a teapot. “Would you like some tea?”

…Zuko is not surprised. “No. No thanks.”

The man sets the pot down with a clink. “Straight to business then. Please take a seat.”

Jet and Zuko do. Smellerbee is scowling at the Pai Sho player and Longshot is watching the door.

“What is it that you seek from our Order?” The strange man asks.

Jet leans forward and Zuko leans back, letting the other take point. “We’re being tracked, possibly by the Fire Nation. Any way you could get us out of the desert unseen?”

“Perhaps,” the man says indifferently.

“Perhaps?” Zuko barks. After all this nonsense? After this borderline treason, this desperate grab at something he isn't even sure he's looking for? “What kind of answer is perhaps!?”

“The only one I can give you, I’m afraid.” The man bows his head once. “I apologize, but enemies are everywhere in these days. An ally’s intentions must be backed by his actions, not the trust of absent old men, no matter how great they are.”

Zuko growls, starts to stand up, and clamps down on his anger, hard. This is not a battle he will win with a fight, as much as he wishes it was. He has no ship, no crew to back him up. Not even the family who have severed him from them with lies and trickery, which he severed in turn through the shearing of his head. Not even his uncle, who-

Zuko has no idea what’s going on with his uncle anymore, other than the uncomfortable certainty that any way you look at it, Iroh is involved with the Earth Kingdom resistance and has been since the siege on Ba Sing Se.

Zuko is alone. There is no one to hold him back. If he doesn’t do it himself, he will fail. And failure isn’t dishonor anymore, or at least not just dishonor. Failure is death. And Zuko refuses to die.

He sits back down. “Jet, did you bring the posters?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Hand them to me.”

Jet raises an eyebrow and doesn’t move.

Zuko scowls. “Please,” he adds, exasperated.

Jet frowns, but does as he asks, watching suspiciously as Zuko pages through the stack of Fire Nation enemies with short sharp movements, until he reaches the familiar mask.

He places the Blue Spirit’s wanted poster on the table, turned to face the man, who raises an eyebrow in question.

“Does this man’s actions carry the weight you seek?”

“The Blue Spirit,” the man says slowly, “Did the world a great service in the liberation of the Avatar from the Pohuai Stronghold. While we are wary do to his lack of affiliation with any known resistance group, those of our persuasion do owe him a debt.”

Zuko reaches into the pack behind him, easily locating the theatre mask, and hopes he isn’t making a huge mistake. The man’s eyebrows jump when he sets it on the table before him, and he hears Jet suck air in sharply through his teeth.

“Then,” Zuko says, meeting the man in the eye, willing him to see the honesty he’s never been able to rid himself of, “pay that due now.”

The man regards him for a long, tense moment, his face utterly composed, and then smiles, his eyes lightening. “Where is it you wish to go?” he asks.

“We're going to Ba Sing Se,” Jet cuts in, sounding slightly shaken. Zuko lifts a questioning eyebrow and tries to remember when he became part of Jet's 'we', but decides it doesn't matter. He’s tired, and half-starved, and out of options. Anywhere away from Azula is fine.

\--

A young man deposits them in a hidden room with food, water, and a new set of clothing for Zuko. “I’ll dress in your old things, and ride your ostrich-horse away from your intended route,” he explains, beaming. “Might be able to buy you guys a few days, or weeks, depending on your tail’s intention.”

“Smart,” Jet comments.

Zuko just grunts. He isn’t happy with losing the ostrich-horse, but can’t see a way it can be helped. He’s even less happy to be lumped in with Jet’s group, still thinking of Jet’s obvious hatred for Zuko’s people. This seems to be even less fixable, since the only way to shake the person trailing him has somehow become sticking with Jet. On the upside, he thinks the way Smellerbee squeaks when he strips down to his undergarments means she’s a she. Well, probably.

Zuko redresses efficiently, and sits, his back to the wall, hating how marvelous the low grade fabric feels after days in his rough cheap traveling clothes. Within seconds Jet wanders over with unholy glee in his eyes and opens his mouth. Zuko’s only known him two days and he already knows that’s a bad sign.

“So.”

“Shut up.”

“Nice mask.”

“Shut up.”

Jet sits beside him, his smile the brightest Zuko’s seen from him yet. “So you saved the Avatar, huh? Was it fun?”

“I got an arrow to the face for my trouble,” Zuko corrects him, scowling. “And a lecture on friendship.”

Jet snorts, then stares, then snorts again. “Katara froze me to a tree.”

They sit, staring at each other for a minute, before Zuko’s mouth quirks into a tiny aggrieved smile. Jet grins back.

“You do realize that if you don’t give us a name sometime soon we’re going to start calling you the Blue Spirit, right? Or Blue. Or Spirit.”

“Shut up, Jet.”

Zuko leans against the wall, closes his eyes, and listens to Jet laugh. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, what he believes, or who he really is, and he has the uneasy suspicion that everything has changed, and this is the end of his life as he once knew it. Somehow, in this room with these three people, Zuko feels like he may be able to survive the loss. The feeling disturbs him, of course, immensely.

But not as much as it should.

Smellerbee kicks his knee and offers him a bowl of meat soup, and it feels almost like acceptance.

He sets down the Lotus tile the old man gave him on the way out, and takes the bowl.

This, Zuko thinks with utterly steadfast certainty, is a really bad idea.


End file.
